Preferred Citation

Biographical/Historical Note

Charles Henry Howard (1838-1908, Bowdoin 1859) was a bvt. brig. general who saw action at Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and Chattanooga, and in command of the U.S.C.T. training camp at Beaufort, South Carolina. After the war, Howard served in the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, as inspector of schools for South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and assistant commissioner for the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

For five years he was western secretary of the American Missionary Association. He served as editor-in-chief of
The Advance, a Congregational journal (1871-1881) and controlling editor of
Farm, Field and Stockman, later
Farm, Field and Fireside (1885-1905). Howard, the brother of Oliver Otis Howard, held several special appointments including government inspector of Indian agencies under Presidents Garfield and Arthur and western editor and business manager of the National Tribune (1885).

Scope and Content

Letters, articles, addresses, diaries, etc., consisting of more than 325 items. The collection includes material on the Civil War, on Charles Henry Howard's experiences at Kents Hill School and Bowdoin College, and on Howard and his family. The majority of the correspondence dates between 1852 and the 1870s and is from Howard to family members; there are several letters to Charles from his brother Oliver Otis Howard. There is a smaller amount of non-family correspondence, most from the 1880s on.

Full transcriptions of the correspondence, as well as alphabetical and chronological correspondence indexes, have been compiled by Russell and Rosalie Howard; electronic versions of the transcriptions and indexes are available
here, courtesy of the Howards (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

Publication Information

Access Restrictions

No restrictions.

Collection Inventory

M90.1: Correspondence, 1852-1910 0.5 linear feet.

Scope and Content:

Approximately 290 items from 1852-1910, the correspondence consists largely of letters between Howard and members of the his family through the 1870s, and with non-family members from the 1880s on, including letters from William Jennings Bryan, Horace Bushnell, Henry Morton Flagler, James Longstreet and Elihu Root. A listing of the material is available by contacting Special Collections. More than 95% of the earlier letters are written by Howard, many of which complement those in the
Oliver Otis Howard and
Rowland Bailey Howard collections.

Full transcriptions of the letters, as well as alphabetical and chronological indexes, have been compiled by Russell and Rosalie Howard; electronic versions of the transcriptions and indexes are available
here, courtesy of the Howards (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

Scope and Content:

Manuscript, typescript and printed material, much of it involving Howard's Civil War experiences or his military career. Dated between 1808 and 1957, it includes articles and addresses, diaries and other ephemeral pieces.